Aerostar says the problem did not originate at LMM; communications failure across U.S. air traffic control centers grounds departures until further notice on a day when Northeast weather had already disrupted 17 SJU flights
Flights to and from Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport (SJU) were halted Friday afternoon after the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) ordered a rare nationwide ground stop on departures, citing “extraordinary circumstances” and “reasons of safety,” following a communications failure at the air traffic control centers that manage flights across the United States.
Aerostar Puerto Rico, which operates the airport, said the situation did not originate at SJU. Because the order applies to the entire U.S. air system, however, the company said it expects flight schedules to be affected until the FAA authorizes service to resume, and it urged passengers to check the status of their flights directly with their airlines before heading to the airport.
“The safety of passengers and of the entire airport community is the priority. Our team remains in communication with the relevant authorities and with the airlines to support operational management and keep travelers informed as the situation evolves,” said Jorge Hernández, president of Aerostar Puerto Rico.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a post on X that the stop stemmed from “a communication issue impacting all Air Route Traffic Control Centers,” and that “FAA technicians are investigating the issue.”
As of 6 p.m. Puerto Rico time, neither the FAA nor the Department of Transportation had identified the system that failed or said when departures would resume. The FAA advisory said departing traffic should remain ground-stopped “until further notice.”
How the stoppage unfolded
The trouble reportedly surfaced in Chicago. Around 3:10 p.m. Eastern (4:10 p.m. in Puerto Rico), the FAA halted flights to O’Hare International Airport over an equipment outage and communications problems, and Midway International Airport received a similar order minutes later, according to published reports. The nationwide advisory followed at about 3:54 p.m. Eastern (4:54 p.m. in Puerto Rico).
Aircraft already in the air were allowed to continue to their destinations, and inbound international flights were being handled case by case, according to published reports. Flight-tracking service Flightradar24 counted about 3,100 aircraft airborne and bound for U.S. airports during the stop. The FAA had not released totals for delays or cancellations.
Air route traffic control centers handle aircraft at cruising altitude between airports, so a failure affecting all of them reaches every route in the national system at once.
The last nationwide halt of departures came in January 2023, when an outage of the FAA’s Notice to Air Missions system grounded flights until 9:07 a.m. Eastern. The agency later traced that failure to contract personnel who had inadvertently deleted files while synchronizing databases.
A second disruption in two months
The ground stop compounded a difficult day at SJU. By 9:45 a.m. Friday, weather on the U.S. East Coast had affected 17 flights at the airport, with nine canceled and eight delayed, potentially affecting about 2,753 passengers, according to an Aerostar irregular operations report cited by Metro, a Caribbean Business sister newspaper.
Arrivals from New York, New Jersey, Boston, Connecticut, Philadelphia and Washington were among those hit, on routes flown by JetBlue, United Airlines, Delta, Frontier and Avelo.
It is also the second federal air traffic control failure to disrupt Puerto Rico travel since September. On Sept. 21, a communications failure at the FAA’s Philadelphia approach control facility triggered temporary ground stops across the Northeast and delayed some flights to and from the island, Metro reported.
Aerostar said the next day that the FAA had corrected the problem and that operations were returning to normal.
The outage came on the same day the White House and the Department of Transportation asked Congress for an additional $30.1 billion for aviation infrastructure, including $10.1 billion for air traffic control upgrades, according to published reports.
Flights between San Juan and the U.S. mainland operate as domestic flights within the national airspace system, so a federal ground stop reaches Puerto Rico directly, regardless of conditions on the island or at the airport.
With most of SJU’s capacity tied to mainland routes, the island has no alternative network to absorb a nationwide halt. The stop hit on a Friday afternoon, one of the busiest travel windows of the week, at an airport that has yet to recover its passenger volume.
